North American Pallet Organizations Announce New Partnership

The Pallet Foundation, National Wooden Pallet & Container Association, Canadian Wood Pallet & Container Association, and the Western Pallet Association are pleased to announce Nature’s Packaging, a new, five-year, $180,000 North American partnership to develop and deliver sound, fact-based materials to wood packaging buyers.

NWPCA’s President and CEO, Brent McClendon, noted, “This strong group of organizations are aligned with the same vision and mission, for the expanded use of wood packaging to improve the environment while addressing the growing needs of global distribution.” McClendon continued, “Fortune 500 company packaging sourcing departments, our joint memberships, and packaging university professors and their students will be hearing and learning a lot from Nature’s Packaging in the coming months and years.”

The Pallet Foundation Chairman of the Board, Bob Wenner, Pallet Service Corporation, concurred, “I am pleased to see all these organizations using their collective resources to increase the use of sustainable wooden packaging through educating and informing customers, packaging specialists and packaging students of wood’s environmental benefits.”

Brian Isard, Canadian Wood Pallet and Container Association’s General Manager said, “We are excited to join with our U.S. colleagues to conduct the research and outreach that will expand on wood’s dominant role as the renewable packaging material for tomorrow.” Carolyn Beach-Skinner, Western Pallet Association’s President commented “We are excited to partner with the NWPCA, the CWPCA and The Pallet Foundation in Nature’s Packaging to promote wood pallets and wood packaging as the economical, recyclable and sustainable product that it always has been.”

The vast majority of consumer and manufacturing goods, domestically and internationally, move on pallets – and 94% of all pallets are wooden. There are more than 2,683 (US) 489 (Canada) mostly small family businesses operating in all 50 states and Canadian provinces. These family businesses are proud to be the integral piece of the North American supply chain, from forest and farm to factory and fork.

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The National Wooden Pallet & Container Association (NWPCA), located in Alexandria, Virginia, is the largest international organization of wood packaging professionals in the world, with 645 member companies located throughout the United States and in 28 countries.

The Pallet Foundation, a 501(c)3 charitable foundation, formed in 1996, supports research, education/training and safety in the wood packaging industry.

The Canadian Wood Pallet & Container Association was formed in 1968. With its 146 members, it is dedicated to promoting the welfare of the wood packaging material industry across Canada.

The Western Pallet Association is an organization formed in 1974, with the primary purpose of bringing together members of the wood pallet industry to share knowledge, create ideas and discuss industry issues specific to the Western United States.